Pages

Thursday, March 14, 2013

St. Patrick's Day Treasure Hunt Review Activity!

Since St. Patrick's Day falls on Sunday this year, I thought we'd review our January - March program songs with a twist...a Treasure Hunt with a fun pot of gold at the end (well, gold candy - even better in the eyes of the kids!).

rainbow wands (optional - I purchased mine from haloheaven.com last year, details HERE. You can omit and just have the kids make a rainbow with their hands instead)

pot (using my dutch oven)

gold coins (I get mine at WinCo also found some at Macey's Grocery store)

masking tape

optional: green footprints, tablecloth & St. Paddy's Day decore

*I made 2 sets of the 4x6 cards - one for Jr. and one for Sr. I'll tape both sets at the various locations before primary.

Download my documents HERE. There are 4 blank cards if you want to write in your own clues HERE. Note that you may need to change the name of the songs that pertain to what your Primary has been learning in the document below! Download my treasure hunt clues HERE. You can find other tags I created using different songs HERE.

PREP:

I think it would be fun to make the Primary room a small mess - some of the chairs turned upside down, the curtains tangled, maybe some small green footprints around the room. Have a green tablecloth with some St. Paddy's day decore. Totally optional.

Then also before Primary, place the treasure hunt items around the building (table or podium [card 1] drinking fountain[card 2], restrooms[card 3], kitchen[card 4, tray & wands], behind the piano[pot of gold]) - if your chapel will be empty maybe you could put the pot of gold behind the organ!) I'd suggest discretely numbering the envelopes before you seal them so you know what order they should be and where they go...a terrible thing to have your cards out of order ;).

ACTIVITY:

Tell the kids "Lucky the Leprechaun" somehow snuck into our church building and made a small mess! Oh no! We need to figure out where he went. Good thing he left us some clues!

I'll send one class at a time to go fetch the clues, along with their teacher to help maintain reverence. Make sure to stress no running in the halls (and no opening clues until they get back to Primary). If anyone gets too wild, the treasure hunt will immediately end.

Find the clues, do what they say, sing the songs then distribute gold coins to all the kids.

Variation: Obviously if you have a large primary roaming the halls may not work. I'd adapt this to have the kids stay in the Primary room - send them to a chalkboard, under the table, on the ceiling, behind a picture, behind the piano, etc. Use the blank cards above to write you own clues! If you write some of your own, leave a comment with them to help others out!

Thanks for the ideas! I think this will be fun for my juniors (we'll see about the seniors... ;) I'll just do the hunt in my primary room- here is a few rhymes I tried to make up, going off Smiler's comment:

When I got to your church everything looked so grand, then I accidently made a wee mess with me tiny hands. (hide sticking out of a picture on the wall that is hanging crooked)

After making this mess I felt bad and wanted to pray, so I knelt under a chair and prayed that way. (hide under one of the kid's chairs)

Prayer made me feel grand not an ounce of me mean, soon I felt my heart was just bursting to sing! (hide by the piano, with the rainbow wands, I'll be singing My Heavenly Father Loves Me with the wands)

Singing of all the beautiful things that I know, now I just had to go look out the window. (hide on a window)

Me thinks I’m lucky to visit this church that is sweet and full of the spirit, it’s time for me to go but I left a treat inside of the pulpit. (our primary room has a pulpit up front where the kids do their talks.)

I like the rewards and activities that you included with the songs, so we'll do that too (on the knees, stickers, wands). Thanks so much!!

Great idea! Here is my twist to your idea! I plan on showing the kids the little green footprints across my music and the note that was left of my music stand. Below is my note and clues. I plan on using a black witch's pot from Halloween and filling it with gold chocolate coins from Winco's bulk section.

I snuck in the wee hours of the morning and left you a pot of me gold. Not the real gold 'cause that be back in my Ise of Green....Follow these clues between songs to find the gold!

In the wee hours of the morning it was all aglow,Look for the first clue near the window.

Just take a close look,You just might find the next clue within a hymn book.

I am smaller than a bear,So look for a clue under a chair.

Tick-tock, tick-tock,You will find the clue near the clock.

I am a sneaky little Lepreauchaun and not very tall,What will you find out in the hall?

I did this last week and everyone LOVED it!! I was a little nervous if the kids would be reverent in the halls, but I just had one class go at a time (with their teacher) and told them that leprechaun gold is magic and disappears if they weren't reverent. They were out of gold coins so I did Reese's (the gold kind) and they were so excited! Thank you so much for this great idea!!

All my documents are uploaded to Google Drive and are free of charge. In order for you to download any documents, you must have a Google Account. You can create a Google Account at google.com in the upper right hand corner.